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53
A fine, large porcelain jar (guan)
Jiajing mark and period
Height: 21I in, 54.6 cm
the sides rise to a short waisted neck and terminate in a lipped rim. The body is boldly painted in underglaze blue with a broad frieze of two two-horned, sinuously twisting, scaly, five-clawed dragons pursuing each other through ruyi-shaped clouds and above rocks and crashing waves; the dragons are separated by shou characters rising from stems of lingzhi fungus. The foot is painted with a band of formal foliate scroll and the shoulder with a scrolling lotus border. The unglazed base is painted with the six-character mark of the Jiajing Emperor in a glazed, recessed circle. |
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Pope notes in Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine (p. 125) that of the five
similar reign-marked vessels in the Ardebil Shrine, three have this type of mark, and he illustrates a Wanli example with the mark on the neck as pl. 79. For similar examples, see Lion-Goldschmidt and Moreau-Gobard, Chinese Art, pl. 150, pp. 338-9; Feddersen, Chinese Decorative Art: A Handbook for Collectors and Connoisseurs, fig. 53; and Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Vol. Two, no. 727, pp. 102-3. |
